


A Fool Called Beloved

by shewhoguards



Category: Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:30:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/pseuds/shewhoguards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her childhood lasted only long enough that she remembered what it was to be loved. There were times when The Fool would not be sure whether that memory were kindness or cruelty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fool Called Beloved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cathalin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathalin/gifts).



> This turned out rather more depressing than I intended. I apologise for that, giftee, and hope you can enjoy it anyway.

Her childhood lasted only long enough that she remembered what it was to be loved. There were times when The Fool would not be sure whether that memory were kindness or cruelty.

Who to blame for that? Not her family, though they were the ones who had loved her so dearly. Loved her enough that she remembered her name from that time as being Beloved. She was born white as the snow on the ground but they cared for her none the less for all that. Dear to her were the memories of the sister she had played with; the two of them laughing and tumbling in the mud. Her paleness had not made her mother hug her close any less, nor had it saved her from scoldings when she deserved them (as sometimes every child must). The colour of her skin had made no difference to her fathers when the pair of them taught her to walk, coaxing her between them for her first unsteady steps. Oh, for those first few years the Fool had been Beloved indeed.

But her family knew what her colour meant, although it grieved them greatly. The Fool was to be the next White Prophet, and they would be selfish indeed to keep her to themselves at the cost of the entire world. They wept as they put her on the boat; barely ten years old and still clutching the doll her fathers had made her. It was a precious thing, made in the image of the babe she had once been and crafted with all they had for her. Later, in the midst of her deepest loneliness, she would rock the doll as though by comforting her infant self she could herself be comforted.

Oft times at Buckkeep, that would be the only comfort the Fool had. She was never allowed to be a child there, and never mind that she was not so many years older than the Fitz. But could the people be blamed either? Perhaps they did not even know she was a child. Her colouring was so odd to them, so alien, that they assumed her height too was normal for her people. If she slipped and acted oddly no-one thought it a sign of her tender years. It was thought Foolish rather than childish. She never pretended to be an adult, she never lied about her age but then no-one ever asked. The Fool wasn’t a person; she was an amusement, a plaything, and who cared enough to wonder for the welfare of a plaything? They didn’t care enough to be curious about her gender so they were scarcely going to be curious about her age.

Those few who cared for her enough to notice her as a person rather than a palace curiosity she cared for dearly because without them she might have forgotten she was human at all. It would have been easy to _become_ the Fool; the playful, ridiculous riddler. It would have been easy to lose that tiny part of her that thought, and analysed, and influenced the great events around her. People did not expect such things of her so it was difficult to expect them from herself. But while Shrewd looked upon her as a plaything he did so as a plaything that had become dear to him, one to be treasured as much as a king can afford to treasure anything. While FitzChivalry looked upon her as an intriguing oddity, he at least wondered about the person underneath which was more than most people gave her. So they earned her loyalty, and whether it was deserved or not once she gave it to them she gave it forever.

And when she could not get the love she needed so desperately from them she turned to her doll. In the privacy of her room it was treasured as  much as any child. Alone, the Fool rocked it, sang to it, tucked it tenderly into its cot. She held it as she had once been held, clutched gently to her breast. Sometimes she slept with it tucked into the curve of her body, warmed by her own heat until it felt almost alive. She cherished it, in part because it was the only thing she had to cherish.

And then there was Regal. The Fool had known she had courted his anger by caring for Shrewd, but how could she do otherwise? He was her king. She had given her heart and her loyalty, and she could take neither back easily. The bruises she earned from Regal as thanks she did her best to ignore. No-one noticed except the Fitz in any case, so clearly it was barely important.

But then he broke into his room – him or his men; for an act of such cruelty it barely mattered if he had done it in person. The Fool had always known if someone had been in her room. She had known the time the Fitz  had entered without her permission and had spent weeks afterwards feeling violated, as though the last thing she had to herself had been stolen. This was so much worse.

The colours she had set around her room to provide stark contrast to her own pale skin were ruined. The cloths were torn to shreds, far beyond any mending. They had not been easy to find and already she felt a sharp pain in her breast as she studied the damage. Then she began to look for her doll.

At first she thought that it had been stolen, but what she found was far worse. It had been smashed; its limbs twisted grotesquely; the delicate face reduced to shards. The Fool scrabbled at first, trying to recover every lost piece, however tiny. It took a painfully long time for her to realise it was a hopeless task.

Finally she could do nothing but hold the doll, hugging it to her as though it were her own dead child. She did not cry; the tears would not come. She could only whimper to herself, a long wordless keen which seemed to go on for hours.

In such a way did the Fool grieve a childhood lost and gone forever.

 


End file.
